Dredge fishing is a method of recreational fishing that fisherman employ to target game fish such as marlin, sailfish, wahoo, tuna and dolphin fish. Dredge fishing first originated in Mexico in the late 1990's and has since spread worldwide throughout the sport fishing community. What fisherman refer to as a “dredge” is the generic name for an umbrella-like spread of subsurface teasers pulled by a boat. The dredge may include things like clear-vinyl strips emblazoned with reflective fish decals, or a school of hookless artificial lures creating a virtual ball of bait that can be trolled behind a boat. The main purpose of this is to mimic a school of swimming baitfish. This presentation is intended to grab the attention of a passing game fish and then attract the fish closer to the boat where the other baits or lures containing hooks are being trolled.
Pulling dredges behind small or midsize boats with a one- or two-person crew is challenging, but very effective. Large boats with towers have a great advantage, because their dredges can be deployed farther back and deeper while still remaining in view from the bridge or tower. Many small and midsize vessels lack that benefit. The technique for smaller boats is to position the dredges as far back as you can and still see them; the objective is spotting fish coming up on them, and being able to quickly adjust a flat-line bait or pitch out another bait while the fish is on the dredge.
Since the inception of dredge fishing, fisherman have been constantly evolving and trying to improve the way that dredges are trolled and retrieved. In the early days of dredge fishing, fishermen would secure their dredges to a cleat on the transom of the boat and troll the dredge straight off the stern of the boat. There were two issues with this method. The first being that the dredges were in the “prop wash” created by the motors so it was hard for fish to see them and also hard for the captain to see where the dredge was and if a fish was following it. The other issue with this method was that it is very difficult to retrieve a dredge by hand in this manner. There is a great deal of resistance created by a dredge being trolled in the water and the captain would usually have to slow down or stop the boat to retrieve a dredge.
After years of growth and evolution of dredge fishing, most experienced sport fishing crews have developed a preferred method for trolling and retrieving dredges. This involves the use of heavy duty electric reels or large conventional reels. The reels are typically mounted to some sort of conventional rod or a shortened custom rod. The line (usually 300 lb-400 lb test monofilament) comes off the rod, going up to a pulley on the outrigger, then down to a second pulley in the water above the dredge, then terminally landed back on the outrigger. Using this method, fishermen are able to get their dredge in “clean water” outside of the prop wash. Additionally, they are able to take advantage of load distribution through multiple pulleys to aid in the retrieval of the dredge.
There are still some issues that arise out of this method. The most pressing one being that this requires an extremely heavy-duty outrigger that are typically found only on large sport fishing yachts. Many recreational fishermen on smaller vessels do not have outriggers that can support the heavy load created by the resistance of a dredge being trolled in the water.
Another issue that arises out of this method of trolling dredges from an outrigger is that it is a permanent setup that cannot be easily removed and replaced each time one wants to fish. This means that your heavy duty electric or conventional reels, which could also be used for other types of fishing, are limited to strictly trolling and retrieving dredges.
Many people have been trying to find an effective way to troll and retrieve dredges without the use of outriggers for these reasons. Other methods that have been tested are the use of downriggers or conventional rods acting as a “dredge boom.” This is not effective for multiple reasons. A few examples are the dredges still are in the “prop wash”, there is too much resistance to retrieve the dredge, rods will bend and flex, once they are retrieved, the dredges are in the way of the fisherman in the cockpit of the boat. There are many more issues that arise from these methods.